


Reading Between Your Lines

by embroiderama



Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/M, Gen, Glasses, Headaches & Migraines, Hurt/Comfort, Past Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-26
Updated: 2013-01-26
Packaged: 2017-11-26 15:19:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/651735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/embroiderama/pseuds/embroiderama
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean started using reading glasses during his year with Lisa, but when Sam came back he just didn't want to take them out of their case, no matter how bad the headaches got.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reading Between Your Lines

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for [](http://caithream.livejournal.com/profile)[**caithream**](http://caithream.livejournal.com/)'s [prompt](http://geckoholic.livejournal.com/302461.html?thread=5071741&#t5071741) in [](http://geckoholic.livejournal.com/profile)[**geckoholic**](http://geckoholic.livejournal.com/)'s [hurt!Dean comment fic meme](http://geckoholic.livejournal.com/302461.html). Hello, SPN fic, it's been a while!

It didn't seem like that big of a deal when Dean was living with Lisa and Ben. He was playing at being the man of the house, so it seemed natural enough for him to have a pair of reading glasses that migrated between the end table in the living room and the bedside table. Yeah, they were prescription glasses because Lisa bullied him into going to the eye doctor at Walmart when she noticed him getting a headache every time he read the newspaper, but it wasn't like he had to wear them around all the time. His distance vision was still fucking awesome, thank you very much, and he certainly didn't need glasses to drive or walk around or work construction. He had to read things now and then at work, but it wasn't a problem because he could still see well enough to read just about anything if he _had_ to.  
   
The problem was when he wanted to read small print for more than a couple of minutes. It started to feel like work, forcing his eyes to focus, like white-knuckling the steering wheel to keep the car moving straight ahead on a bad patch of road, struggling to do something that ought to be effortless. The glasses made it easy again, and he could read for hours without getting one of those pissy little headaches that could grow and swell into red hot pain that lasted for hours. Wearing the glasses wasn't awesome exactly, but Dean could deal with it. He had braced himself for Lisa to laugh at him when he first put them on, but instead she grinned and dragged him out to the car—and proved that she was still bendy as hell. Dean didn't really get the appeal but as far as kinks went glasses were seriously a lot more comfortable than the things some women were into. _A lot_ more comfortable.  
   
But then Sam came back, and it was like a miracle—except that there's no such thing as a miracle, just a new and surprising flavor of shit. Dean knew it was stupid to worry about what Sam would think about the damn glasses, but he couldn't help wanting to keep it from him, hiding his weakness. He wore the glasses sometimes, when he was doing research and Sam was off doing whatever the hell he did. When Sam was around, Dean left the glasses in their case buried down in his duffel bag, and he drank enough that he didn't care if his head hurt or if his eyes burned in their sockets. He tried not to care about anything.  
   
And then they shoved Sam's soul back up inside him, and that was sure as hell no miracle. But he had his brother back for real, at least some of the time, and there were moments when it was just like old times. Almost. He thought about letting Sam see his glasses, maybe give him something to laugh about when things were bad. But Sam was supposed to be the geek, Dean was supposed to be cool and strong; they had their roles. He thought maybe Sam needed that to stay the same, to stay safe, more than he needed a chuckle at Dean's expense. So he kept the glasses buried and he kept Sam at his side when he could, and the headaches didn't do him any favors.  
   
They were on the hunt for information as much as they'd ever been for bones in the ground, and Dean was ending every day with his head face-down in a pillow, a chemical icepack tucked under his eyes if he could get away with Sammy not seeing it. Sometimes Dean was grateful when Sam had a bad enough day that he wasn't hardly noticing anything real, and he hated himself for that. For that, among other things.  
   
Dean woke up one morning to the sight of Sam sitting next to him on the bed, holding the spent icepack in his hands and squishing the contents from one side to the other.  He looked like he'd hypnotized himself, but when Dean sat up Sam stopped his repetitive motion and looked up. His face was full-on hangdog puppy, but his eyes were clear.  
   
" _Dean_ ," he said before stopping to furrow his gigantic brow. He sighed then continued. "I know you don't want to hear this, but I think you need to go see a doctor."  
   
"What?" If they were going to talk about his drinking, Dean was definitely not awake enough for that conversation.  
   
"Your headaches. You think I don't notice? I think—I think I saw them before, too, but I guess I didn't care." He frowned and looked over to the side then back at Dean. "You should go see a doctor."  
   
"Dude, it's not a big deal. Everybody gets headaches, you big drama queen."  
   
"But this isn't normal for you. Headaches that are this bad?" Sam waved around the floppy icepack. "And getting worse? It could be something really bad."  
   
Dean ran a hand over his face because he hadn't totally kicked his headache from the night before, and he needed caffeine and Advil more than he needed an intervention from Sam. "Have you been reading WebMD again? Seriously, it's nothing."  
   
"How do you know?" Now Sam was getting pissy, and it was way too early for that.  
   
" _I know._ " Dean snatched the icepack out of Sam's hand and tossed it over to the trash can. Two points.  
   
"Did you already go to the doctor?" Sam's voice was low now, deep and serious with that echo of John Winchester, and it was too much. Dean wasn't sure if the dude in the white coat in the little glasses section at Walmart even counted as a doctor, and it sure as hell wasn't worth all this Lifetime movie drama. Sam had worked up so much more of a fuss than Dean had been trying to avoid by hiding the damn glasses. "DEAN," Sam said, and now his jaw was squared like he was getting himself ready for a fight.  
   
Dean held up a hand. "Hold up there, Dr. Google. Let me show you something." Dean sighed as he walked over to his duffel bag, and when he looked up he saw Sam watching him intently like he was getting ready to pull some kind of x-ray of a brain tumor out of the bag. He dug around and found the stiff fake-leather glasses case, then pulled it out and tossed it to Sam, who caught it neatly.  
   
"What the hell is—" Sam's mouth gaped open as he looked at the object in his hands. "Glasses?"  
   
"Reading glasses. Prescription 'cause, I don't know, one eye's not as stupid as the other one."  
   
"But you don't wear glasses."  
   
"Well guess what, between one thing and another I've managed to live long enough to start getting old. I got them when I was—" Dean didn't like to talk about his time with Lisa, sure as hell not with Sam.  
   
"When you were with Lisa." Sam's voice was gentle but then he shook his head and laughed. "You are seriously a moron." Sam tossed the glasses back.  
   
"Yeah, yeah, yuck it up." Dean figured there was no getting around it so he put the glasses on his face then looked up to see Sam's reaction. And Sam was smiling, a real smile with nothing fucked up hiding behind it, and Dean didn't know what the hell do to with that other than shake his head and smile back. He didn't really know what kind of life he was living from one day to the next but this, he'd take this.

He might have to go shut Sam's piehole for him in a minute, but that was the way it worked between them. That was the way things were supposed to be.


End file.
